My point is that regardless of whether local service fees are being charged, it was not codified in the RTW fare rules. Now they are. Just a license to add more fees to processing RTW tickets.

My main concern with the change is that several OW hub cities, LON, NYC, TYO, WAS & BUA have more than 1 airport. Usually the long-haul intl flights use 1 airport and domestic flights use another airport in the same city. If you fly into Argentina and want to go to any other city in that country, you must waste 2 segments. For example, JFK-EZE//AEP-IGR-AEP//EZE-Europe. Same city, different airport. You have used 4 segments in South America, 2 for the surface segments between EZE & AEP plus the actual flight AEP-IGR-AEP.

Not true - you can make the relevant coupons open and then make them out to the city code. I have done this previously when not sure, for example, whether I could confirm a flight LHR-IAD but knew that I had a confirmed reservation LHR-BWI as backup. When ticketed I got an open coupon LHR-WAS which could be used either way.

What airline did you do that on?
I've seen this before but the ticket was issued by my TA - would it work on AA?

BA was the carrier for that segment, but the ticket was issued by CX in TPE. I've done similar with AA and flights in and out of NYC, probably on tickets issued by CX or AA (sorry - can't remember exactly).

Using MEL rather than SYD is 17% better for Qpoints with CNS and 22% with AKL.

SYD-CNS-MEL-AKL-SYD

BNE-DRW is not amongst the '1 only' routes. So if one needs to go up north, MEL-AKL-BNE-DRW-SYD is a good alternative.

Hmmm, could it be that this change was made to save the programming effort of fixing the oneworld planner? Naah, can't be... can it?

Can anyone point me in the direction of some discussion or other explanation of why surface segments would require a void coupon in an e-ticket? I find these air ticketing intricacies fascinating...

AFAIK surface segments also incur VOID segments on paper tix. Must be due to the IT infrastructure? I'm actually wondering about the same thing myself.

Also, even connections between airports (LHR-LGW surface) would most likely count against the limit, as I found when booking an AA oneworld award. :(

Looks like someone will have to find out if PER-NRT-LHR is a valid connection that only "touches" SE Asia in order to get from SWP to Europe after originating in SE Asia......

The flight distance is OK even if it is a 763 from/to PER

Happy wandering

Fred

That technique would only work with open-dated coupons. There are a few instances when a dated coupon is preferred (usually flights with limited class availabilty), then you have to use the actual airport codes to make sure you can fly that segment. As an aside, I think most agents do not know about city vs airport codes.

With handwritten paper tickets I can understand it. If in a 4-coupon book you fly JFK-LAX//SFO-JFK, the all four airports need to be written out, with a voided coupon for the LAX//SFO surface segment. This isn't the case with printed paper tickets, and the DONE4 paper tickets we have (that are now printed, thanks to a recent reissue) have no skipped coupon or stock control numbers for the surface segments.

Would like to get a copy of the IATA ticketing handbook, although that probably just says what you have to do, and not why that's the case.

I'm going from memory here but I see no reason for PER-xNRT-LHR not to be a valid connection under that particular rule. In fact, the connection does not even have to be a sinlge one; it can be two or even three connections, as long as there are no stopovers involved and one is willing to spend the segments. This was tested about a two years ago, IIRC, and was found to be acceptable.

RTW desk uncertain on existing tickets
 

I just booked a re-issue of an outstanding DONE4 (now a DONE5) that has a surface segment remaining, and the AA RTW desk didn't know if the new segment rule applied to existing PNRs or not. A supervisor went ahead and okayed it but since I have to go to the airport for a paper ticket reissue (something about them not being able to see an image of the ticket) I fear the final chapter may not yet be writ.

,,,,,,,,,,,,

Why do surface segments need to be included in any sort of ticket?

Here's a summary of this set of fare changes as now published on cxagents.com. The spreadsheet versions of the rules have not been updated yet. I will upload them as usual when they have been.

From a QF customer service rep.
'As per your request, clarifying the rules of the 4 continent Oneworld Explorer fare. LHR and LGW are considered London and as one city, just as JFK and LGA is New York and not considered a ground segment.'

'The new rules that have been introduced in relation to the number of segments permitted is unrelated to e-ticketing. At the moment the maximum number of segments that can be issued on an e-ticket is 16. As you have 20 segments, you will have a paper ticket.'

I needed to do a little bit of messing about to get my itinerary to fit but am still getting over 52k miles so pretty happy with that.

Good luck to those who are trying to re-jig.

Any significance in 'at the moment'?

Perhaps getting closer to this choice.

I was wondering what all the fuss was about because i have only just started using the OW planner this last week - i was confused that having a flight from Capetown to HKG was classed as 2 segments bc i dont have any option but to go via Jo'Burg but i just thought it was part of the rules.

Just means you have to be more creative i guess, i'll now be flying LHR-JHB and then jumping a cheap flight/train to Capetown thereby saving a segment (which i will be using longhaul)

{deleted - misread}

It has always been true that the segments needed to get from A to B each count. One segment = one coupon, so if e.g. Cathay chose to serve CPT via JNB using a single flight number, you'd have the option of flying the route as one segment.

Lest anyone get carried away making plans for same-city, different-airport connections, note that a year or so ago AA/ATW desk adamently insisted that the airports in the Los Angeles basin were most certainly not co-terminals. I have no idea what that means in the above context - just a suggestion not to cast such plans in mental concrete without checking with your airline first.

By definition there is no surface segment between co-terminals. What is less clear (at least to me) is if this is a move to count all coupons once e-tickets become compulsory, and whether using co-terminals requires an extra coupon.

....................

Hmm...
 

Sent by me a couple of weeks ago to Oneworld -

Subject : General enquiry

Enquiry : How are changes to Oneworld products decided upon? As a user of the Oneworld Explorer RTW product I am very unhappy about the rule change slated for 1 July 2007 in which surface segments are counted against the 20 segment total. This is a serious erosion of the product's value to many business users, and I would urge OW to reconsider the change.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

-------

Response received today -

Dear (Gardyloo),

Thank you for your feedback you are not the only customer who has remarked on this change. I will be reviewing it with the airlines.

regards


(His name)
Manager, Fare Products and Frequent Flyer Programmes
oneworld Alliance

Wasn't OW advertising a vacancy for this role not long ago? I wonder if it is the new person.

As suspected :( It is easier to change the rules than to improve the software :td:

I sent a comment the same day. No response yet. I believe that I used the RTW products as a subject. Perhaps the idea of sending more e-mails from those who have not done so may have an impact. Such a tatic has been successful in the past 1 or 2 times with US airlines.

What email address are you sending to?

I've used the on line comment form. They don't exactly seem to be encouraging direct communication . :rolleyes:

No, but then neither do some airlines. For example the other day, AA wanted me to read out a draft DONE4 itinerary over the phone :rolleyes: I don't suppose anyone has an email address for AA's RTW desk?

Anyway, I've sent some feedback on the surface segments issue.

They work at [antique] terminals, not PC-like machines. Email would require a PC somewhere, with someone trained to use it, thus the practical answer is usually "FAX".

No offense, but people distant from software development keep saying that as if it's the most stupid thing they've ever heard. It is unfortunately true that even the simplest change to a major body of software will be quoted at a few hundred thousand USD, ranging to the low millions.

Note that my involvement has not included airline systems, so I'm partly over-speaking here, but generally to change "16" to "20" the developer might have to spend a month or longer researching the impact of that change on a dozen airlines' hardware/software implementations, hold meetings to review proposed changes with his colleages, publish documents for final review, then make the necessary changes and carry out a plan to test the new software to be sure it does exactly what was intended and no more.

I wasn't meaning to trivialise it (unfortunately I know too well how complex systems can become), but it is not exactly customer friendly to just take the easy option and devalue the product. Remember it is the airlines themselves that are pushing for 100% e-ticketing.

Response today to my email yesterday to oneworld:

"Thank you for you're feedback, you are not alone in your sentiments. The item is on are agenda with the airlines."

Similar to the one to Gardyloo above.

Just to amplify your point: it's usually not a simple matter of changing a "16" to a "20" but of searching out assumptions regarding maximum number of segments (or whatever). It's often easier to write software, especially for legacy systems, that assumes a fixed maximum number of something, rather than make it unlimited.